


Stark Industries

by FlippedScript



Series: Spider-Man's New York Tour (AU) [8]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: BAMF Peter Parker, BAMF Tony Stark, Disabled Character, Gen, Identity Reveal, Marvel Cameos, Secret Identity, Technology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:14:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25826491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlippedScript/pseuds/FlippedScript
Summary: “So if you’re Mr. Stark’s Alfred, Jarvis,” Peter began, grinning. “Does that make him Bruce Wayne? Should I be worried about him breaking out a cowl and doing parkour?”Tony laughed at that, trying to treat the kid’s far-too on point question as the joke it clearly was. “Oh god, no. Too many dead Americans on my conscious to even pretend I’m a hero, anyways”. That much was true - the weapons he designed had killed so many people, he wasn’t sure if any amount of heroics, Iron Suit or not, would be enough to make up for the evil his weapons unleashed upon the world.In which Tony Stark teaches an intern how to be an engineer, learns how to be a superhero from Spider-Man, and finds a greater purpose in his life.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Spider-Man's New York Tour (AU) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557637
Comments: 23
Kudos: 121





	1. Planning

Let it be said, that Tony Stark does NOT need a personal technical assistant, regardless of what Pepper Potts will tell you. Yes, technically he is disabled from the waist down, but he can still operate his upper body just fine, and he’s been that way for over a decade. Pepper’s attempts to _socialize_ him were poorly disguised, anyway. He was incredibly well socialized, some could say too well socialized, if he was going to be honest. Besides, it wasn’t like either of their circle of friends went beyond Rhodey or Happy in the first place. 

To be doubly fair, Tony wasn’t nearly as socially inept as his last technical assistant. The man was obsessed with drones, had tried to steal both materials and code more than once, and had to be escorted out of Tony’s lab by Happy after his second tantrum that had resulted in the destruction of an important prototype.

(Looking back though, Tony hadn’t been the best mentor/boss. Hell, he didn’t even remember the guy’s name, if he knew it in the first place. The guy was smart, sure, but no where near Tony's level, and was impossible to work with. He was also insane, which didn't help.)

But Pepper had explained things well, so he promises to give the new guy, Peter Parker, about two weeks before he decides if he's worth keeping around. And the second week is only because Pepper raved about the kid for like fifteen minutes.

“He’s got this heart of gold, Tony,” Pepper had explained, gushing as Tony only half listened. He was skimming through the kid’s file as his girlfriend spoke, eyes darting across the screen. “His peers love him, he does fantastic work, and he’s got a good head on his shoulders. He was the one in the middle of the whole daily bugle controversy a few months ago, if you remember that,” and he did remember that, and he liked the idea of keeping people with morals like that for more than his dad or Stane would. Lord knew that SI needed more of those people, and could have used them back when Stane was literally selling missiles to terrorists.

“He smart enough to keep up?” Tony asked even if he knew the answer. The question was directed towards Jarvis more than Pepper, but both answered in their own way, a 2400 SAT score and a truly puzzling distribution of 60s and 95s through high school and university greeting Tony on the screen in front of him.

“He definitely seems to be,” Pepper added. “Graduated top of his class for Biophysics at Empire State, and he regularly outperforms his peers. Hopefully he can balance out your Mech-E mindset, at least a little more than Rinehart did.”

“You and I both know the problem is that Rinehart was a sociopath, Pep,” Tony sniped back, because the guy had been off his rocker.

“Parker had the second best skills evaluation ever, too,” she finished, smirking as she could tell that Tony was sold.

“Behind Leeds?” He checked, as if it would anyone else.

“Mmhm,” Pepper shrugged, a grin forming. Beating Ned Leeds on the skills evaluation was probably impossible, seeing as the kid could hack into anything he wanted, probably ever. Try as he may, not even promises of outlandish salaries and benefits weren’t enough to pull the kid away from his quant work, and Tony had tried.

(Recently, Leeds had somehow gotten scooped up by some weird government group, which pissed Tony off to no end.)

The only problem, Pepper warned, was that the kid had a habit on disappearing and calling off of work, which would normally get him fired (“let go”, in Pepper speak) but he was so damn good at his job that it wasn’t worth it. That was fine, Tony reasoned, and he definitely didn’t work normal hours anyways. He promised to let Pepper know if Peter missing time was a serious problem (frankly SI had money to burn, unless Peter was a net decrease in productivity he could stay, in Tony’s opinion), and that was that.

Unfortunately, a side effect of agreeing to take on Peter as an assistant was that he had to be up and ready to work by 9:00, which _sucks_. At least he gets to look out the windows and watch New York bustle beneath him for once - most of the time he’s asleep from 6:00am until at least noon, and the best views of New York he gets are of rush hour.

Tony is still getting ready when Jarvis lets him know that Peter Parker has arrived, just as he exits the elevator and enters the lab. “Lab Camera One, J?” He asks, finishing off some leftovers as the camera’s image is projected onto the wall in front of him.

Peter certainly looks the part of new personal intern, matching nearly every bit of what Pepper had described him as. His shirt had a dorky pun on it (if you’re not part of the solution, you’re a part of the precipitate), his hair looked like combs just managed to get stuck in them, he had a backpack despite being twenty-five years old, and he looked around the lab in absolute wonder, which fair. Dum-E seemed to be a big fan of the kid, beeping and whirring at him like they were long lost friends.

(It took a few moments, but Tony realized why: Peter Parker seemed a lot like he had, thirty years ago. He was fifty-five now, which meant that yes he was _old_ , but Peter was a lot like he had been, once. Of course since then, Obadiah Stane had proven to be far less of a family friend and far more of a trash human being who sold products that Tony designed to terrorists and orchestrated an assassination attempt on him. Fortunately, only Stark’s lower half was affected in the accident, and he was still fully capable of getting Stane sent to jail and turning Stark Industries into the powerhouse it was today.)

The kid (Peter, he reminded himself, even if he preferred the nickname), to his credit, just laughs as Dum-E poked and prodded at him, dropping his backpack down with an audible thunk. “First one here?” He asks, pulling his phone out of his pocket to check the time. Tony does the same, but checks an actual watch to confirm it isn’t 10:00 quite yet.

(Normally they would probably start at 9:00, but Pepper had said that she’d be going over legal things with Peter until then, which gave him a blessed extra hour of sleep.)

He takes a few more sips of his coffee, watching as Peter talks to Dum-E some more. Eventually, harnessing his mostly-discarded flair for the dramatic, he wheeled himself towards the entrance to his lab, the doors opening as his wheelchair approached them. “Welcome, Kid,” he said, laughing inwardly as Parker jumped a tiny bit. “Ready to get to work?”

Peter manages to get over how starstruck he is much faster than expected, and they skip the pleasantries and how are you’s and get right to work.They work on a new Text-to-Braille converter, designed to be a better version of the last one, which simply read out the contents of a page, as more of a bulky OCR program than anything. This one was supposed to scan a page and then print out a Braille version, which was tricky.

The kid had useful feedback, at least, and they quickly found that their biggest hurdle was not knowing how to standardize the Braille outputs to a method that matched what a blind person might expect. That proved to be especially difficult, because neither Tony nor Peter knew how to read braille. The kid was clearly as much of a perfectionist as he was though, and the pair of them managed to force themselves through a good part of a Braille crash course before lunch.

“Lunch, Kid?” Tony had to ask around noon, after he noticed him on what was at least his third protein bar. That could not be healthy habit, but Stark wasn’t the picture of health either, so he won’t judge.

They make small talk over lunch, and Peter talks around why he didn’t follow a traditional schooling path, but it’s not like Mr. I went to MIT at Fourteen can judge. (And wow, Tony realizes inwardly, he and Peter have way too many things in common.)

They make great progress in the afternoon, Peter’s modifications to a broken printer from a few floors down and Tony’s software reprogramming and the OCR program they found online meshing almost perfectly, to the point where it’s a bit buggy, but actually fairly serviceable.

“I have a blind friend who could help test this actually, if you want him to come in?” Peter asks, closing his eyes as his fingers run over the now dotted paper. 

Flashbacks to when the last intern/assistant took prototypes _without_ asking come to mind unbidden, and it takes a moment to collect himself before he replies.

In the meantime, Peter continues to ramble. “I mean, I could also go drop it off with him, if that’s more convenient, I’ll be going to hiss office anyways, but I remember that Mr. Hogan said a lot about security and he seemed sort of scary, so…”

“You’re fine, kid. Yeah, you want to just take it with you? I don’t mind, we’ll end up with something new on our desk tomorrow. What time are you getting out of here?” Tony asked, already turning to do some CAD work for an outer shell.

Jarvis butts in for the first time that day, talking over the kid’s grumblings of “not a kid”, and the AI voice pulling them from their focus. “Sirs, might I suggest that you also use this time to establish what working hours will be in the future? You asked me to remind you to do so,” it reminds. The kid seems surprised, turning towards the door only to see no one is there.

“That’s Jarvis, he’s pretty much a digital butler. My Alfred, so to speak,” Tony explained, grinning as the kid’s eyes widened with realization.

“Nice to meet you, Jarvis.” Peter said, clearly unsure where to direct his greeting as he looked up from his work and towards the ceiling.

“Greetings, Mr. Parker. I’m an Artificial Intelligence program used by Mr. Stark to assist him in all personal matters. While you’re here, I’ll be happy to help you as well, with anything from simple calculations to reminders.”

“So if you’re Mr. Stark’s Alfred, Jarvis,” Peter began, grinning. “Does that make him Bruce Wayne? Should I be worried about him breaking out a cowl and doing parkour?”

Tony laughed at that, trying to treat the kid’s far-too on point question as the joke it clearly was. “Oh god, no. Too many dead Americans on my conscious to even pretend I’m a hero, anyways”. That much was true - the weapons he designed had killed so many people, he wasn’t sure if any amount of heroics, Iron Suit or not, would be enough to make up for the evil his weapons had unleashed upon the world.

They talk through the timing of when Peter will be there in the future and Tony assures him that he’s lax, something the kid seems to appreciate quite a bit. They get back to work from there, and somehow get the various parts of their new braille printer into a sleek-enough case that doesn’t do much to hide the fact that the whole thing is just a printer they messed with. Jarvis lets them know when it’s five fifteen, and Peter puts his backpack back on and puts the printer into a cardboard box.

From there, he gets to move on to the fun part of his days. Working on his normal tasks was fun, but now, with the Iron Man suit, he had felt a little like he had better things to work on, and with another person in the lab, he didn’t want to ruin the whole secret identity plan. With a few words to Jarvis a section of the ceiling opens and the suit descends, and Tony wheels his way in front of it, the glow of the arc reactor shining in his face.

He's taken plenty of science courses, and knows that all of the energy, every source of light in the world comes indirectly from sunlight, even the fossil fuels that were once dinosaurs that once ate grass that grew in the hot sun. He had thought, for a long time, that the only things in the world that generated energy on their own were the weapons he made, and that the light that the plutonium generated was beautiful. It wasn't, and the things it was used for were as dirty as the smoke that trailed behind his missiles.

So, he rebuilt Stark Industries from the ground up, and made it into a leader in clean energy, energy from the sun, and the light from those creations looked far more beautiful than any bomb ever could or would. But now, he looks at the Arc Reactor on the lab table before him, and thinks _this is it_. He’s fifty five years old but it’s like he’s finally found his purpose. The arc reactor glows not from the sun, but from the work of his own hands, and he knows that the power of Arc reactor won’t ever be used to harm an innocent. The suit that it’ll power will only protect them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any questions about Tony in this fic and how it differs from canon, you can take a look at the [first fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25104097) in the series, which can hopefully give context.
> 
> This has been in the works for a while, and I am excited to get it moving! One fun thing about having things planned out is that I can start laying the groundwork for who a potential villain may be. Any ideas on who we might see? 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are very much appreciated!


	2. Analysis

The Iron Man suit wasn’t always the Iron Man suit. Before, it had been the Iron Spider, the red and gold armor something that Tony had intended to gift to Spider-Man as a thank-you for protecting New York. 

Spider-Man didn’t want it. (In hindsight, that was understandable, a mechanical exoskeleton given by an anonymous benefactor wasn’t something that Spider-Man needed.)

Spider-Man had, however, implied that is was definitely possible for someone else to pilot the suit, which made… far too much sense, really. 

So Tony had re-evaluated, adding additional reinforcements for safety, designing a better HUD, and adding some actual weaponry. It hurt to design something that even resembled missiles, but if it was Rhodey piloting the suit, he trusted him to make the right decisions. 

Rhodey didn’t want to pilot the suit, and his reasons were shitty, but that was okay. 

In his fervor to disprove that it would be too hard to fly (which was a paper thin excuse, in hindsight, the Air Force was already looking into a different way to give soldiers literal wings, with admittedly limited success), Tony had set it up to be able to piloted remotely, demonstrating this to his best friend before realized just what he had been fooled into doing - Iron Man was his and clearly his, and now, somehow, his best friend and his moral inspirations had inadvertently teamed up to turn him into a superhero. 

At least, Tony mused as the elevator in the corner of the lab lifted him into the suit room he had set up, he had found a new passion project. He and Spider-Man had agreed to meet up at 10:00pm in Queens, which gave him some time to do a little work - so long as the suit would still work okay, and looked the part. 

One of the biggest challenges of the suit design was that it still had to look like it had a real pilot. Yes, Stark had no intention of ever getting inside of the thing, and there was no space for a human anyways, with the arc reactor and all of the other internal components that could fit, but the idea that a human was inside of the thing would definitely help with the secret identity. 

By 8:30 the suit hardware was ready to go, and by 8:45 Jarvis had completed diagnostics and Tony was clear for takeoff. Actually getting the suit into the city was a little tricky - the Iron Man suit flying in and out of the Stark Industries penthouse would be a dead giveaway as to who it belonged to. 

Eventually, the suit was able to descend into the streets of New York, with movements carefully calibrated over a few months to look just like a human was piloting on it from the inside, and not like it was being controlled by an AI and a man who couldn’t move his legs. By 9:45 he was able to land the suit and take a moment to space out, ordering the suit to stay still as he waited on a roof above the famous LOVE sculpture. People didn’t really recognize Iron Man yet, and most New Yorkers just kept their distance, a few taking his picture covertly. 

At 9:50 he was greeted by a swinging Spider-Man overhead, who landed with an overly-showy flip. 

“Hey Tin Can,” the hero greeted, using the same nickname he had the last time they spoke.

“I prefer Iron Man, actually,” Tony greeted, his voice picked up by Jarvis before it played, a little more staticky, from a speaker in the suit. (The latency on that was still a tad slow, but probably manageable). 

“How are you doing this evening, Webs?”, he continued. Tony had never been great at small talk, especially which people who he had only spoken to a few times, but Spider-Man had a knack for never being awkward. He also went right along with the nickname, which Tony didn’t empathize with at all.

“I’m doing well, actually. Work and personal life are both doing great for the first in a while, if I’m being honest. How about you?” Spider-Man asked, his infectious grin somehow leaking through the mask. (Mental note number one: make the mask friendlier. Mental note number two, find a way to take notes while in the suit)

“Doing alright. New co-worker started today, and he seems like a good fit so far,” Tony said, despite himself. It felt weird to share any details about his personal life, but Spider-Man just had, so he sort of felt obligated to as well. 

“You mind if we head over a few blocks? I have a friend who’d like to meet you, but he doesn’t do as well with buildings this tall,” Spider-Man asked. 

Tony saw no problem with that, and he followed Spider-Man, his thrusters engaged to low power, to where he was mostly hovering. All systems were working well so far, which wasn’t a surprise, of course, but it was good to get a decent field test in New York, rather than in some sketchy land upstate. 

In a few minutes, Jarvis and the HUD informed him that they were at Columbus circle, as if the overly tall statue wasn’t indication enough. A secondary map also let him know that he was just on outskirts of Hell’s Kitchen, a piece of information that was infinitely more useful. 

In the shadows, almost invisible, was Daredevil, wearing his normal red suit. (Mental note number three: Add contour highlighting to his graphics display?)

“Double D,” Spider-Man greeted, offering the man a high five, which Daredevil reluctantly accepted, with what seemed like an eye roll. Spider-Man ignored his mentor’s mood, gesturing towards the Iron Man suit. “This is Tin Can, although he wants to be called Iron Man, which is way lamer. Also, all three of us are in red costumes, I think he’s a fan of us, whaddya think?” 

Daredevil let out a noise of what sounded a lot like irritation, at which point Spider-Man picked him up and _carried_ him towards the armor, totally ignoring the small crowd of spectators who had gathered. 

Daredevil stuck out a hand, which Tony gingerly shook, careful not to crush the man’s fingers, before nodding. “A pleasure,” he said, before turning heel and somersaulting back towards Hell’s Kitchen. 

“He likes you?” Spider-Man tried, which was… unconvincing. “At least, I think he does. He can be a little gruff, trust me, it took me like, months to get him to warm up to me,” the kid rambled, and wow, it suddenly very obvious to Tony that Spider-Man was a kid, who he was going to need to learn how to be a hero from. 

Tony had a hard time imagining it would take anyone months to warm up to Spider-Man, but he’d heard the stories of what New York and Hells Kitchen were like in the early days of heroism, and it made a bit more sense. Spider-Man offered a stink eye to the crowd that had gathered. 

“Go introduce yourself, Tin Can. Unless you want me to tell them what you wanna be called?” He asked, the question somehow sounding like the threat it really was. 

Dealing with people was somehow more awkward as Iron Man than as Tony Stark, but he did his best. There were about a dozen questions being asked of him at once, and even with Jarvis’s help, he couldn’t identify all of them (Mental note number four, that could definitely be address in the HUD). One of the snippets he definitely caught was “are you a new super hero?”, which he chose to answer, against his better judgement. 

“Spidey is, ah, showing me the ropes right now. I just want to help out how I can,” which was truth enough. He answered a few more questions, made sure to say that he was Iron Man, and then clicked his heels for show before taking off in another low hover, headed towards the buildings Spider-Man had went to.

“What’s next on the agenda? He called out towards the roof, knowing that his mentor(?) was somewhere out there. 

“Patrol, was my plan,” was an easy reply from his teacher, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. We’ll be out until around 2:30, if that works for you?” 

“Works for me, yeah.” 

Spider-Man pulled out a flip phone from that, which made Tony’s lip curl in disgust. 

“Burner.” Spider-Man said, “gotta let the girlfriend know when I’m out ‘till” he explained, which he didn’t need to do. Tony didn’t really have anyone to let know - neither Pepper nor Happy knew, and Rhodey wasn’t exactly waiting for him at home. 

“Do a lot of people know about your identity?” He asked, making small talk as he followed Spider-Man off the roof and towards Queens. 

Spider-Man somehow managed to shrug as he swung, making a decent pace compared to the Iron Man armor. Obvious Tony could go faster, but there didn’t seem to be much of a rush. Occasionally Spider-Man would stop somewhere and intervene, but he seemed to have things handled, and nothing particularly major was going wrong, so Tony kept his distance. 

“You’re definitely better suited to higher publicity situations than these, I appreciate you hanging back,” Spider-Man complimented towards the end of the night, as they watched police talk to a drunk driver Spider-Man had stopped from taking out a mailbox by _catching the car_. 

“Course. I’m mostly trying to learn, really. I appreciate you taking the time,” Tony offered. It always felt a little weird to be thanking someone for something, especially during his playboy days, but he did his best to do so now, and if anyone’s time was worth more than Tony’s it was Spider-Man, after all. Idly, he wondered what kind of job the guy had, but tried not to dwell on it. He was probably a male model or an athlete or something, taking advantage of his natural strength. 

Eventually, 2:15 came, and Spider-Man stopped above another alley. New York was asleep as it ever could be, but Spider-Man seemed awake nonetheless. 

“One last word of advice, alright?” He spoke as Tony landed the suit as quietly as he could behind Spider-Man. (Mental note number five, land quieter.) “Tell someone about all this stuff you’re doing, dude. I took too long too, and even a little help can go a long long way.” 

Spider-Man was making a lot of sense, but it wasn’t like Tony had someone to go to, really. “Noted, thanks.” Was all he could say on that front. “Who all knows for you, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Spider-Man paused for a moment, thinking. “Daredevil, a few people in his circle. A few other vigilantes, and my immediate family.” He paused. “My girlfriend, too. And speaking of, she’ll kill me if I’m not home soon. You got enough battery to make it back as well?” Spider-Man asked, ready to leap off of the roof. 

The arc reactor could power the suit for another decade with no problems, but Tony didn’t feel a need to share that. “I’ve got plenty of juice, Spidey. Thanks again.”

“Not a problem,” the hero nodded. “By the way, here,” he added, tossing what looked like a business card to Iron Man’s feet, before, jumping off the building like he was doing a belly flop. A few moments later he came up into the air again on a strand of webbing, swinging.

The card featured nothing but a burner phone number on it. Tony had Jarvis add it to his Iron Man notes, and set the card on fire in his hand (he didn’t really need it to be laying around in plain view at home, and it felt weird to leave it). Then, he directed the suit to fly home for the night, and made his way towards his bedroom to sleep for the night. Jarvis could handle things from there. 

* * *

It was official. Waking up at 8:30am was way too early after a night of patrol, something that Tony could already imagine Spider-Man having no empathy for. And that was with his lack of a commute required, seeing as he was ready for work and able to wheel into his lab only 20 minutes later, without problem. 

Peter was already there, scrawling notes on a whiteboard as the prototype sat beside him on the table. He hadn’t even taken off his bag, instead muttering to himself as he wrote down feedback. 

Tony faked a cough, at which point the kid turned and grinned. He had on another dorky science shirt today (it was a classic, the “I’ve lost an electron!” “Are you sure?” “I’m positive!”, which seemed a little juvenile for a twenty-something, but to each their own), and seemed to have for too much energy for it being so early. The can of Red Bull that was definitely not Tony’s, which was probably to blame for said energy. 

“Ah, hey Mr. Stark. Matt said that the printer was pretty useful, but he had a few gripes with it. Are we putting in more work on that today, or do we have something else in store?”

“Nah, more on this. Let’s see what you’ve got for me, kid,” Tony grinned, excited to get to work. 

The pair worked incredibly well together, far better than Tony had with the last intern, who was admittedly smarter than Peter. Peter was personable though, and thoughtful, and that made all the difference. (Peter also had more interests than drone tech too, which made for better idle conversation.) The morning absolutely flew by, and they had a Mark 2 ready by lunch.

Idly, as he waiting for Peter to get back with their pizza lunch, he considered the Mark IV upstairs, and briefly considered just how much fun it would be to work with the kid on that, instead. 

But even as he turned Spider-Man's advice about finding people to share his secret with over in his mind, he knew it wasn't the time, and he certainly couldn't fully trust the kid quite yet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! 
> 
> A little bit more Iron Man in this one, with a cameo from Matt, who really doesn't seem to want to stick around. A few small easter egg references to other MCU characters, let me know if you caught them! 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos mean the world to me.


	3. Design

Iron Man catches on quick. It only takes a few weeks before people are talking about how he should win sexiest man alive, which is fitting, really. The thing is, Tony wants to win it (again), and he tells Rhodey as much. As it turns out, Rhodey is in fact aware than only Spider-Man has won it twice, and no, he is in fact still not interested in whether or not a robotic suit deserves to win an honor like that.

(Tony isn’t entirely sure if it would count as a second win if “Iron Man” was called the sexiest man alive either, but that’s beyond that point).

The point, of course, is that Iron Man things are going well, and so is the rest of Tony’s life, somehow. People seem to like Iron Man, and Daredevil even seemed willing to work with him, which seemed like a mark of approval from the greater vigilante community. Both Daredevil and Spider-Man seemed constantly interested in sneaking up on him, a feat that normally culminated in the attachment of a “kick me” sticky note to a plate of his armor. At least, Tony was pretty sure it was their doing, although he did lack any evidence. It was annoying, and Tony was certain he’d catch one of them in the act one of these days. The pranks were annoying, but also felt like a bit of a rite of passage: Spider-Man had once let it slip that “Double D” had done the same to him when he was starting out. In general, Spider-Man did seem the more interested of New York’s vigilantes in getting to know Iron Man, which definitely didn’t make Tony fanboy at all.

Professionally things were going well too - Peter had been a phenomenal assistant who was worth far more than he was being paid (Tony admittedly didn’t know what said pay was, but Peter was definitely worth more. Hell, the kid probably deserved stock). Peter was prompt enough, incredibly bright, and seemed to get along with everyone else around SI, not that he interacted with most other employees much.

The kid was also far more sociable than most who could keep up with Stark in a professional context, and had even done will at the Stark Gala a few months back, even if his girlfriend was scary intense. Tony had to shove the comparisons that he drew between his assistant’s love life and what his once had been far into the recesses of his conscious, and occasionally had to chase them off before he spiraled too far.

In terms of a personal life, well… it was as good as could be expected, which was… not great. Sometimes he felt like he and Pepper were on their way to patching things up, and then he would sleep through a meeting because of a 28-hour C++ bender and it felt like he was at square one all over again, patented stare down and all. Peter would helpfully point out that she was doing a poor job with her patent enforcement though, because he got the same look far too often from MJ. Peter really was just Tony’s slightly younger clone, minus the whole super suit thing, come to think of it.

Almost a month after Iron Man has started, and Tony is in a rhythm. He gets less sleep than even he’s used to, but he loves every moment he’s awake, for the first time in a while, so that isn’t the end of the world. He spends his days working to help people, and his evenings doing the same. And sometimes, when he closes his eyes he even tricks himself into thinking that maybe, just maybe, he can make up for his sins.

It’s not even Midnight on an October night when Spider-Man decides that’s enough work for the day, and Tony still doesn’t quite feel comfortable enough to patrol on his own. He tried it once, a week and a half ago or so, and there was either no crime going on, or his was just lousy at finding it. He directs the suit to fly back to the tower automatically, and decides to give Rhodey a call.

The phone rings about four times before it’s picked up, and Rhodey’s voice filters through the surround sound of Tony’s suit control zone. There are diagnostics on the screen that Tony keeps an eye on still, but he knows the suit will make its way home no problem.

“This about the kid or the suit?” Are the words the greet him, which makes Tony stop for a moment.

“Are those the only two things we ever talk about, honey-bear?” He laughs, leaning back a bit into the chair and putting his hands up behind his head as he speaks up into the air.

“Mmhm,” is all Rhodey replies with, and as he thinks about it, Tony realizes he’s probably right.

“Neither,” he finally answers. “Just done with a patrol early, probably gonna get to bed soon and wanted to say hello,” he explains.

“You mean you’re bored waiting for the suit to fly back, and want me to distract you?” Rhodey teased back, and Tony doesn’t even have to close his eyes to imagine the grin his best friend is almost certainly sporting right now.

“I’m taking that silence as a yes,” Rhodey continues, and right, Tony is normally supposed to at least refute that.

“But it’s a Friday night and an absolutely gorgeous blonde has been making eyes at me all night, so I hope you can forgive me for cutting this conversation short,” Rhodey continues, steamrolling the conversation like he did a few decades ago when a five drinks gone Tony tried to argue he was definitely in a good state to solder those last two leads together.

That is more than fair enough, and Tony would be a hypocrite for judging his friend for turning his attentions to any of the fairer sex. “Bye Platypus, have fun cheating on me,” Tony teased, his finger hovering over the end call button.

“Thanks, Tones. Tell the kid about the suit,” his best friend laughs on the other end of the line, before the end call sound plays through the speakers.

(Silently, Tony is thankful that Rhodes doesn't make any jabs about Tony's lack of a love life. For all the shit they give each other, they both know what's off limits.)

That said, Rhodes just has to keep bringing that sharing of secrets idea up. It was a common discussion between them - Rhodey was adamant that someone who actually lived in New York and not DC should be able to help with all things Iron Man, a stance that he had become even firmer on when he met Peter for the first time. His best friend had sat Tony down and given him a firm talk about things like ‘trust’ and ‘responsibility’ and ‘safety’, but Tony was pretty sure Rhodey was just sick of the 2am phone calls interrupting whatever he was getting up to in the wee hours of the morning.

The next day is Saturday, which means that he has the lab all to himself, which in turn means today is a suit day. He spends more time on software than hardware, though - he discovered a sticker for Javascript - _Javascript, he's offended!_ on the back of the armor’s leg, and that’s the final straw, frankly. He’s determined to catch the culprit in action, but with how dark things can get, he doesn’t think that any sort of typical vision system would work. He briefly considers a RADAR system, but that seems like overkill, and Spider-Man seems to tense up anytime things get too loud, for he’ll have to be more creative. LIDAR is right out as well, for obvious reason.

It takes a second mug of coffee before he realizes that the best solution is obviously thermal vision, which leads him down a few-hour rabbit hole as he looks into required parts are i2c drivers and next day shipping. Some of the parts he needs will take a while to fab as well, so he tasks Jarvis with that work and tables the rest of the work until the next day.

* * *

That night, while the parts for the thermal sensors are being fabricated, he and Spider-Man make it a few blocks before Spider-Man stops on a roof and offers an awkward handshake. Tony takes it, hesitant, and Spider-Man laughs as the two step away from each other. The laugh is longer and louder than any Tony has seen before from the vigilante, and he gets the feeling it’s a bit more genuine than the ones he saw the few times Spider-Man was on a talk show.

“There’s no one in this suit, is there, Tin Can?” Spider-Man asks, and if that isn’t the last thing Stark expected to hear.

“What makes you think that?” Tony asks, hoping he can deflect well enough.

“First off because it sounds hollow, but also because I don’t think any energy source could power the suit without it being like, in your chest or something,” Spider-Man answers, and Tony gets the feeling that Spider-Man has been confident about this for a while.

Sunday goes by fairly quickly as well, a blur of business reports and slide decks that Pepper gleefully informs him he is behind on, and the far more important naps actually does need. The power naps do give him more energy than he expected though, and Tony doesn’t fall asleep until somewhere around four am, still thinking through how he’s going to catch either of vigilante friends (friends!) in their pranks.

Jarvis wakes him up like he normally does at half past eight, the sunroof slowly opening to filter in sunlight as the best of AC/DC slowly gains volume. It takes twenty minutes Tony is ready for his day, and by nine he and Parker are already getting to work. The day goes by quickly, or at least, that’s the excuse Tony gives himself as to why he doesn’t tell Peter about the Iron Man suit. It’s not that he doesn’t trust the kid - he does, it’s just that he doesn’t think that it’s a good time, or something like that. It's still hard to trust though and yes, he can admit that Peter isn’t like that last hack of an intern/assistant, but still. Tony is trying, it just takes time.

The day finishes quickly, and he skips patrol for the afternoon, instead focusing on the suit upgrades. He does send a drone with a note so that Spider-Man can know not to expect him at their usual meeting place, and receives a phone number scrawled onto a napkin in response. It takes minimal research to realize that it’s a burner number, which isn’t much of a surprise. With that handled, Tony is able to focus his attention on the thermal vision (He wanted to call it heat vision, but he’s not superman, as cool as that would be), which still definitely needs some work.

After a few hours everything is working fine, but there really just isn’t a good way to implement it on the heads up display, without giving information overload. The HUD already has enough info on it as is, so while he would like to flag something like changes in state, that’s also being finicky, so he settles for just storing the heat vision and normal vision together as training data for the next time he goes for a flight, and see if he can figure things out from there. He goes for a quick flight and does join Spider-Man towards the end of his patrol, before finally getting to bed a little early.

In an ideal world, Jarvis would wake him up with an automatic alarm at 8:30 again the next day, and Tony would be plenty well rested for another day of work. Today, unfortunately, is not a day in said ideal world, because instead he is woken up by a blaring alarm and the sound of a small explosion, which, as far as he knows is never a good sign. Tony is a man of action, however, and he’s quick to get from bed to wheelchair to the Iron Man control center.

Either way, Tony grits his teeth, and waits for the armor to exit the armory (heh) before turning his attention from Jarvis’ rundown of the SI security system to the HUD of the armor as it flashes in front of him. Just what is he getting himself into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. Life can be busy. 
> 
> Hopefully you all are enjoying the double-blind secret identity going on, it's been fun to write. 
> 
> Any ideas or guesses as to who the attacker of the SI building might be?


	4. Implementation

As it turns out, Tony is getting himself into quite a lot.

The suit arcs down from the penthouse room that is devoted to it in a wide angle, which is a great way to help obfuscate his identity, at least a little. Unfortunately, the arc also means that by the time the chaos on the street before him comes into view, the suit is practically on top of the action.

Thankfully, JARVIS does a fantastic job of taking care of the actual flying, and Tony can scan through the heads up display as he takes stock of the situation. From what he can tell, some guy with a fishbowl on his head is doing freaky magic things, which is certainly the step up from the normal muggers he helps Spider-Man subdue on patrols.

Fishbowl-Man (he has to have a better name, right? Tony at least hopes so) seems to be ignoring the rest of the street in favor of just attacking the SI building, and Tony would be flattered if, you know, it wasn’t putting people, his people, in danger. As is, Tony Stark has a bone to pick with the guy, his stupid fishbowl, and with his weird green cape.

He takes a deep breath as the suit makes its way to hover between Fishbowl-Man and the tower itself. He speaks into the microphone that is in front of him, grateful that Jarvis is modulating his voice to make it not only sound like someone other than him, but also more intimidating than Tony’s own does. 

“Mind telling me what’s going on here?” He asks, voice booming loud enough for Fishbowl-Man to hear him. As he waits for a response, he tries to run through the advice Spider-Man had given him for handling confrontations on his own. Admittedly, most of the advice for for muggers and the like and not for potential supervillains.

“I am Mysterio!” Fishbowl-Man answers, which is probably a good start, because identifying motive is definitely one of Spider-Man’s main priorities. This is also definitely progress because if Tony has to call this guy Fishbowl-Man any longer, he’s going to want to put his own head in a fishbowl too.

Mysterio - not that Mysterio is that great of a name either, truth be told, is blabbing something about how Stark Industries is a farce unworthy of Iron Man’s protection, but Tony tunes it out, instead focusing on his surroundings. Mysterio (bleh, what a dumb name) is doing some kind of hand motion as he summons another bolt of energy, this one streaking above him, and towards a window on what Tony is pretty sure is floor 14.

Sections shatterproof glass on the ten through seventeenth floors appear to be shattered in places, and Mysterio seems almost gleeful as he shoots at an already open window, and that’s when Tony flies into the fray. He prioritizes the safety of his employees above actually handling Mysterio, another lesson Spider-Man had been quick to teach him.

Initially, Tony attempts to shoot the bolts of magic, which works about as well as would be expected. His missiles appear to go right through the green bolts, which continue to shatter the glass. One thing that does seem to work, fortunately, is blocking the bolts of magic with a large sheet of metal.

Once the suit has found a way to hold onto it (Tony thanks his lucky stars he isn’t inside the suit while it’s flying, he can only imagine the stress), the metal becomes a shield that seems to be stopping Mysterio from accomplishing much of anything.

By the time he does get into a rhythm he spots Spider-Man swinging down the street, and he is able to link up to his mentor’s comms just as another bolt of magic glances off of the shield.

From there, the fight is pretty quick. Tony passes the makeshift shield off to Spider-Man with only a little difficulty, and mounts an offensive while the web-slinger seems content to play real-life brick breaker.

A few well placed missiles of warning later, Mysterio decides to flee, turning and jumping off the roof behind him, leaving nothing but a shower of green and purple sparks.

Spider-Man seems unperturbed by Mysterio’s disappearance, at least for the time being, and forces Iron Man into a photo op or two, murmuring a “talk to you this evening?” between two of his picture perfect deflections to the standard questions. After a few minutes Spider-Man left, and the media attention shifts quickly to Iron Man.

Frankly, Tony is glad he has had so much practice handling the media in the past, because answering rapid-fire questions is tough to begin with, especially when you haven’t really done it before. He gives a few decent sound bites, ignores the reporter from the Bugle, and figures that’s a job well enough done for the time being. It’s all overwhelming though, from the

He decides to fly the suit to a secondary location for the day, a good way to avoid the view of the few dozen cameras pointed at the tower - the last thing he wants is for Iron Man’s affiliation with Stark Industries to become so obvious from the get go. Sure, he knows that Pepper is almost certainly aware of it, as much as she pretends not to be, but he and her also tend to get along best when they just ignore those types of things.

Tony’s phone has a text from Peter waiting on it when he finally makes it into his workshop for the day, indicating that the damage around S.I. will be delaying him a bit, which is reasonable enough. Tony wants to get to work on his own, although without Peter here it’s difficult to focus, sort of like trying to do work on a desk you just reorganized a little bit wrong.

Instead, he elects to take a power nap, catching up on some much needed rest as he comes down from the adrenaline high that he had just gone through.

Jarvis wakes Tony up when Peter arrives, bringing with him a dozen bagels and a tub of cream cheese as a peace offering, which will do wonders for Tony’s mood. Tony’s stomach rumbles, and he is reminded that he probably hasn’t ate in sixteen or so hours. They quickly clear off a table and get to eating right away.

“You get in okay?” He asks through a mouthful of food, his hand cupped around his mouth like that does anything about his lack of manners.

Peter doesn’t seem to mind the bad manners, looking up from his trio of bagels (cream cheesing still in progress) to answer. “Yeah, aside from the whole Mysterio situation. You know much about it?”

Tony swallows down his bite as he thinks through how to answer that. He takes a deep breath, and decides that yeah, he’s gonna need some help with this Super Hero thing. “More than you’d think, actually,” he says, pausing. “How much do you know about Iron Man?”

If Peter is confused by the question, he doesn’t show it. “Not too much, beyond that he seems to be a partner-slash-friend of Spider-Man, and that he was involved today.”

Tony nods, and then, in an instant, decides to go back on what he had planned. “That’s about what I know”, he lies, and hopes his expression doesn’t reveal anything. “But he did send me an encrypted email, and it sounds like Mysterio had some kind of grudge against Stark Industries, not that I can understand any sort of rationale as to why,” he continues.

Internally, he hears the voice of Rhodey scold him, but he doesn’t feel like he can trust Peter quite yet, especially with such a big secret. So instead, Tony made something up, and fortunately Jarvis comes to his rescue.

“Iron Man said that Mysterio didn’t think that Stark Industries was worthy of protection,” Jarvis added, disdain for the very implication clear. “Mysterio apparently believes that we at S.I. are holding back the future and stifling innovations, and appears to hold something of a grudge against us.”

Tony can’t help but smile as Jarvis uses phrasing like ‘we’ and ‘us’ to refer to his company, and offers a mock salute to the ceiling. “Thanks, Jarv,” he grins, thankful that Jarvis had been listening to Mysterio’s ramblings even when Tony himself had not.

Peter laughed and waved at the ceiling as well. “I feel like I should have asked his by now, but are your cameras and microphones above us, Jarvis?” He spoke, diverting the topic for a moment. “I assume your source code is in the cloud, although I hope it isn’t rude of me to ask?”

Tony hid a smile behind a bite of his bagel - Peter’s attitude towards Jarvis was much different than his last intern’s had been, and he spoke as if he was talking to a person, rather than to a calculator or search engine. It was refreshing, especially when even many of his top engineers didn’t quite understand Jarvis.

“No offense taken, Mr. Parker. You are correct as to where my cameras and microphones are located. As for my source code, that has been deemed too risky to leave on the cloud, and so it is instead kept in a partially offline server here in Stark Tower,”Jarvis answered plainly, even if Tony could tell his friend was glad about Peter’s interest.

“Got it, thanks Jarvis. And you can call me Peter, if you’d like,” Peter added, clearly thrown off by the formality.

“Understood, Peter. Thank you.” Jarvis spoke back before falling silent.

From there, Peter finished up his bagels and left the rest by the door for later consumption. Apparently they were from his girlfriend’s favorite place, and he wanted to bring them home after work, which had prompted a quick discussion of Peter’s life outside of work, something that Tony was surprised had yet to come up.

All things considered Peter was… secretive was the wrong word, just private, Tony supposed. He has more than willing to share information about his life, and was more than polite about doing so, he just wasn’t much in the habit of sharing that information on his own.

Tony could relate. Even before the days of paparazzi and scandals Tony had been very private, and he respected Peter for being the same way.

The pair worked through the day, and by seven Tony was desperate for another nap, and Peter seemed about ready to crash as well. The two of them finished up what they were working on before Peter said goodbye, leaving Tony alone to nap before his evening patrol, and the meeting he had promised to Spider-Man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony, Tony, Tony. So close, yet so far. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this chapter, and a congratulations to _iovewords_ for guessing the identity of the villain!


End file.
